God Is Dead – Now What?

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?”

Today, satire has replaced wisdom as “certainty” has become a relic. Truth only exists to fundamentalists, and to be intelligent is to know nothing. Relativism has replaced absolutes, and hypocrisy is a necessary in the art of persuasion. Feelings over facts, and outrage over strength. It’s no wonder that so many of us feel lost.

Why risk being wrong when you can criticize anyone who dares to try and make meaning in a universe without god? Packed with frustration without a goal, shame is used as a tool to push others down. Those who’ve attained greatness have merely taken from others. Happiness is a delusion. Family is slavery. Civilization is oppression. Humans are a plague.

This feeling of loss isn’t anything new, but the amount of information that we can take in to ignore it is – adrift in a sea of information with limitless frustration, we distract ourselves from ourselves by fighting externalized ill-defined threats that we have little control over.

So, how do we find peace, and can the stories of old – the myths that penetrate nearly all good fiction – help us find answers? In a universe without god, what do we do?